Saturday Morning Cartoons

One of the conceits of the Confederate Heritage™ crowd is that their Confederate ancestors — and they themselves, by extension — fought for the true values and principles of the U.S. Constitution, against the wicked and evil tyranny of Lincoln and the North. So what to make of this petition at Change-dot-org?

I urge President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and the U.S. Supreme Court to sign a bill into law protecting these monuments, all military monuments from removal.

Uh, wut?

Ignore for a moment the odd spectacle of people who fetishize “states’ rights” and argue that it’s a governing principle worth fighting a war over, now wanting the federal government — you know, the oppressive, tyrannical one their forefathers took up arms against — to step in and tell states and local governments how to run their affairs. What, exactly, do the organizers and thousands of people who signed this petition think the Vice President’s or the Supreme Court’s role is in “signing” a law in the first place?

Should (say) the Congress play a role in creating such a law? How do new laws even get made? Is there a role for the Legislative Branch in preparing legislation? It is a puzzlement.

I get it that folks are unhappy about the removal or relocation of Confederate iconography and want their voices heard. But sheesh, make a little effort to understand how to get what you want accomplished. You might even want to take notes:

Their ancestors loved a tyrannical, domineering central government when it was tyrannical and domineering in the defense of slavery, so it makes sense they would love a tyrannical, domineering central government in the service of their honoring the defense of slavery.

Like ancestor, like descendent. They very same people who later claimed to have been fighting for states’ rights were perfectly happy to accept a federal Fugitive Slave Law and, when individual (Northern) states tried to opt out of it, demanded a federal slave code.